“Linda, you are supposed to be reading an original work, a poem you made up yourself, not reciting something you learned. That is called plagiarism!”
“Oh, but it’s not. I mean . . . I did make it up; it’s about my dad.” I heard a “Yeah, right!” from somewhere behind me, and someone else giggled.
I felt as if I’d somersaulted off the high dive and then, in midair, realized that there was no water in the pool. I opened my mouth to explain, but no words came out.
“You will leave the room and will not return until you are ready to apologize,” said Mrs. Baker. “Now. Go!”
My last thought was a flash of understanding as to why the kids had nicknamed her “Battle-Ax Baker”—then my brain just fizzled out, and I turned and left the room.
I’d been standing outside for about half an hour when Joseph, the school janitor, came over to ask me what heinous crime I’d committed to be banished for so long. He loved using unusual words.
We’d made friends one morning before school, when he saw me sitting alone, pretending to do homework. He invited me to help open up the classrooms, and after that, it sort of became my job. He always talked to me as we wiped down the chalkboards and turned on the heat. Just that morning he’d been telling me that Mark Twain once said that the difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. I liked that. My dad would have liked it, too.
Now as Joseph waited for me to answer, he looked so kind and sympathetic that I poured out the whole story, trying not to cry. A tightness flashed over his face, and he jerked an enormous yellow duster out of the pocket of his gray overalls. “So what are you going to do?” he asked, rolling up the duster into a tight ball.
I shrugged, feeling helpless and sad. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you are not going to stand here all day, are you?”
I sighed. “I suppose I’ll do what she said. You know . . . say I’m sorry.”
“You’ll apologize?”
I nodded. “What else can I do? It’s no big deal. I’ll just never write anything good in her class again.”
He looked disappointed with my response, so I shrugged once more and turned away from him.
“Linda.” The tone of his voice forced me to look back. “Accepting defeat, when you should stand up for yourself, can become a very dangerous habit.” He twisted the duster around his fingers. “Believe me. I know!”
He was staring right into my eyes. I blinked and looked down. His eyes followed mine, and we both noticed my green boots at the same time. Suddenly his face relaxed and creased into a huge smile. He chuckled and said, “You’re going to be just fine. I don’t have to worry about you. When you put on those boots this morning, you knew you were the only Linda Brown in the whole world.” As if he didn’t need it anymore, he cheerfully dropped the duster back into his pocket and folded his arms across his chest. “Those are the boots of someone who can take care of herself and knows when something is worth fighting for.”
His eyes, smiling into mine, woke up a part of me that had been asleep since I’d come to this school, and I knew that he was right about me. I’d just lost direction for a while. I took a deep breath and knocked on the classroom door, ready to face Mrs. Baker—ready to recite my poem.
Linda Rosenberg
©Lynn Johnston Productions, Inc. Distributed by United Feature Syndicate.
Showing Up
Any guy who can maintain a positive attitude without much playing time certainly earns my respect.
Earvin “Magic” Johnson
My son’s first season of playing basketball was when he was ten years old. Often, when I picked him up from his father’s house, he was shooting hoops. On one such day, he came running over to my car and said, “Mom, can I pleeease get another basketball?”
“Why do you need two basketballs, Tyler?” I asked.
“Because then I could have a basketball at my mom’s house and at my dad’s house,” he replied.
I thought that was a fine idea, especially since all Tyler could talk about was basketball. Sometimes he’d ask me to take him to the gym an hour before practice began. He enjoyed meeting his new teammates and thought the basketball drills were fun. I often had to convince him to leave the gym after practice was over. He usually wanted to hang around and shoot baskets.
Tyler and I have always had our most special talks when I go into his room to say good night. One night, he expressed some concern over his basketball shoes. He told me that maybe he needed better ones. I closed my eyes tightly, wishing that his last sentence would just go away. Being a single mom, the topic of new shoes was always difficult for me. I looked over at his “broken-in” shoes sitting next to his perfectly folded uniform. They looked just fine to me. I quickly changed the subject.
Finally, the first game of the season arrived. The gym was surprisingly crowded. Tyler’s team, the Hornets, was playing the Magic. I saw the happy look in my son’s eyes when he saw his dad sitting in the stands a few yards down from me.
There was a look of determination on Tyler’s face as he joined his teammates. As I watched the other kids running up and down the court, I saw my son sitting on the bench. By the fourth quarter, Tyler hadn’t even touched the ball, and his team had won the game.
The games that followed were pretty much the same. The team kept winning, but Tyler barely touched the ball. He ran so hard when he was on the court, but when he got the ball, he would quickly throw it to a teammate. I would sit there with my heart pounding out of my chest.
On the way home from one of his games, I asked, “Tyler, do you still enjoy basketball?”
He replied, “I like basketball a lot. But I know that some of the kids play better than me, so when I get the ball, I just throw it to them.”
The next day, I ran into an old friend of mine who used to play basketball when we were younger. I shared with him how I thought that Tyler played somewhat cautiously.
“Does he have good shoes?” he asked. I remembered how earlier in the season, Tyler had mentioned that he thought he needed better shoes. My friend must have noticed the look on my face as I thought about Tyler’s worn-out shoes. Before I knew it, we were shoe shopping. He insisted on buying Tyler a pair of beautiful, high-quality basketball shoes. It was the kind of gesture that inspires deep gratitude for any single mom, especially the mother of a son.
As I put Tyler to bed, he told me that he had wanted new basketball shoes for a long time. He loved them. They were awesome. He hoped that his new shoes would help him with his game.
Weeks of Tyler’s unending enthusiasm and devotion to basketball flew by. Once more, Tyler told me that he knew he wasn’t the best player on his team but that it was okay because he liked basketball so much. He played hard and kept practicing. I watched him improve. He never became discouraged. He said that he felt more comfortable in his new shoes and once more thanked me for them. He gave me detailed descriptions of new plays he had thought of. He told me how he was proud to be on such a good team. So far, they were undefeated.
The team made it to the play-offs. In front of a standing-room-only crowd, Tyler scored eight points at the end of a very close and exciting game.
The season came to a close, and the time for the awards ceremony was coming up. Tyler was guessing which kids would be getting awards for Most Valuable Player, Best Defense, Most Improved and Best All-Around Player. Tyler’s team had come in second place, and each player received a trophy. Toward the end of the ceremony, the director got up and thanked everybody. Then he said, “We aren’t finished yet. We have one last, special award for a very special player. He shows up for every game with a positive attitude. He has never argued with a referee or another player, never been late and never missed a practice or a game. He knows his place while playing, and his teammates speak highly of him. He plays because he obviously loves the game, and he always runs hard and tries his best. The Sportsmanship Award goes to Tyler Marsden!
”
Suddenly, all the attention was on Tyler. His teammates and friends were giving him high-fives and slaps on the back. I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I looked a few yards down into the stands and saw his father with the same tears in his eyes. We actually smiled at one another.
The other kids were still congratulating him when Tyler walked over and picked up his second trophy. I overheard other parents saying, “He got the most impressive award of the evening.”
Tyler proudly said, “Now I have a trophy for my mom’s house and a trophy for my dad’s house!”
Julie J. Vaughn
with Tyler Vaughn Marsden
The Pest
Ellen was a pest. When we met in kindergarten, she hogged all the clay. When we were seniors in high school, she made fun of the art college I was planning to attend. During the years in between, we each grew up in our own way. She was loud and made sarcastic remarks. I remained skinny and shy, with a reputation as the artist of the class. Every other year or so, there she was in my class again— loud, insulting and so unpopular. I wasn’t popular either, but I always had a little circle of friends to keep me safe.
So our two paths muddled along throughout school, occasionally crossing for short, always irritating, episodes. When I discovered her in my seventh-grade gym class, I knew I was in for a really bad year. I was always the lightweight in gym class, the girl who was trampled on during a hockey game or beaned with a basketball. Ellen, on the other hand, was the one who did the trampling. Clearly, we were on a collision course this time.
I managed to survive the field hockey unit by employing my dodging skills. I wasn’t much at scoring goals, but boy, could I dodge! I was relieved when our teacher announced that the next unit of study would be gymnastics. That was one of the few things I was fairly good at, and it was definitely not a contact sport.
On the first day of gymnastics, we chose partners to work with on a floor routine. My best friend, Chris, and I were of similar size and strength, and we made a good team. Together we practiced balancing over each other on the mats, doing Chinese sit-ups and spotting each other for handstands. Ellen never really had a partner. She would be paired off with whoever was left over that day. She was so clumsy and rough that her unfortunate partners often wound up with bumps and bruises. Luckily, Chris and I never missed a class, and so were spared the terror of working with her.
After three weeks of practicing, it was time to perform for the teacher and receive our grades. When our turn came, Chris and I went through the routine. We were well rehearsed and even received a smattering of applause along with our A’s. As we returned to our friends along the mats, we laughed with relief that it was over.
When it was time for Ellen to stand up, we all wondered who her partner would be. She’d never practiced the routine with anyone more than once. To my horror, I heard her give the teacher my name. I had never been paired with her at all, so why me?
I stood up, outraged, with my friends murmuring their disapproval. The popular girls were giggling among themselves. This was a good chance for them to have their revenge on me for being a better artist than they were. I wondered if I should challenge Ellen’s right to pick me, since we’d never practiced together. But when I looked into her eyes, I could see that she was thinking the same thing and praying that I wouldn’t humiliate her.
I walked to the center of the mat, anxious to get the whole thing over with. I held her ankles for the sit-ups and got a foot in my chin when she did her handstand. But we got through the mat work all right, and the fact that she was fifty pounds heavier than I was didn’t seem to matter much. When it came time for the horizontal balance though, I felt a shiver of fear and rebellion. How could I ever support her weight over me with just my outstretched arms and legs?
As I flopped onto my back on the mat, I heard the other girls giggling and whispering together. If Ellen collapsed onto me, it would be the end of my self-respect as well as the end of all my internal organs. I rested my feet against her hipbones and reached out to grasp her hands. As her fingers interlaced with mine, I was struck by how small they were. They were short and soft, like a baby’s. My hands were always rough from scrubbing paint and ink off them. Slowly straightening my legs, I shifted her weight over me as she raised her own legs out behind her. Her fingers clutched mine, and I was looking directly into her frightened eyes.
Is she worried about crushing me to lifeless jelly, I wondered, or is she just worried about her grade?
We held our position for the required length of time, our eyes locked in mutual fear, our fingers grasping until they turned white at the tips. I was surprised to feel that, as long as we held that delicate balance, I was able to support her weight fairly easily. When I slowly lowered her back to her feet, there was no sound of applause. But I could hear a general murmur of amazement that we had actually done it. The teacher said “Good!” in a voice that betrayed her own surprise. Ellen glanced at me, and I could see that the fear in her eyes had turned to relief and pride. Did I do that? I wondered, returning to my place.
“How did you do it?” my friend Barbara whispered as I sat down.
“Why did you do it?” Chris asked, as some of the other girls continued to snicker.
“I don’t know,” I replied, and it was the truth. But it was beginning to dawn on me that when someone reaches out with small hands and frightened eyes, the only possible answer is “Yes, I’m here.” That day with Ellen the Pest seemed to help me grasp other hands when they needed me. I learned that, together, people of all sorts can find that safe little point of balance, if they just have faith in each other.
Several weeks after Ellen earned her first B in gymnastics, she was absent from school for a few days. I heard that her father had just died after a long illness. Although I wasn’t there to see it, I knew how tightly her fingers had interlocked with her mother’s on the day he was buried.
Judy Fuerst
A Good Reason to Look Up
Much is required from those to whom much is given, for their responsibility is greater.
Luke 12:48
When I was in junior high school, what my friends thought of me was real important to me. During those years I grew much taller than most of my peers. Being so tall made me feel uncomfortable. In order to keep the focus off of me and my unusual height, I went along with the crowd who would play practical jokes on other kids at school. Being one of the class clowns gave me a way to make sure that the jokes were directed at others, and not at me.
I would pull all kinds of pranks that were hurtful, and sometimes even harmful, to others. Once before gym class, my friends and I put Icy Hot in the gym shorts of one of the kids on the basketball team. Not only was he terribly embarrassed, but he also had to go to the school nurse’s office. I thought it was going to be funny, but it ended up that no one thought it was—least of all my father.
My parents didn’t always think that my behavior was funny. They reminded me about The Golden Rule: to treat others as I would like to be treated. Many times, I was disciplined for the hurtful way that I was treating others. What I was doing was hurting other kids, and in turn hurting my reputation as someone to be looked up to. My friends were looking up to me because I was tall, but what did they see?
My parents wanted me to be a leader who was a good example to others—to be a decent human being. They taught me to set my own goals, and to do the best at everything that I set out to do. During the lectures I got from my father, he told me over and over again to be the leader that I was meant to be—to be a big man in my heart and actions, as well as in my body. I had to question myself whether or not it was important to be the kind of leader and person my father believed I was inside. I knew in my heart that he was right. So I tried my best to follow my father’s advice.
Once I focused on being the best that I could be at basketball and became a leader in the game, I took my responsibility to set a good example more seriously. I sometimes have to stop and think before I ac
t, and I make mistakes occasionally—everyone is human. But I continue to look for opportunities where I can make a difference, and to set a good example because of my father’s advice. I now pass it on to you.
“Be a leader, Shaq, not a follower. Since people already have to look up to you, give them a good reason to do so.”
Shaquille O’Neal
Close Call
A few years ago, my mom went to the doctor to ask him about her neck. “Lately it’s been a little swollen,” she told him. He looked at her and then told her she needed to see a hematologist. It turned out there was something wrong with her lymph glands, and she would have to have a biopsy. Soon they had scheduled her for surgery on the seventh of September.
As soon as I found out, I was furious. September 7 is my birthday. I screamed and yelled at her and everyone else, too. I even yelled at the dog. I started begging her to reschedule. She gave me this look like she was about to cry and said, “I’m sorry, but I’ve done everything I can. There’s nothing else I can do.” Finally, I just yelled, “I hate you!” and ran into my room, crying. I sat on my bed thinking, Why do things always have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? I didn’t even think about how my mom, the one who was actually going to get cut open, was feeling.
For the next couple weeks, all I did was sulk. Deep down I knew I shouldn’t act that way, but I did anyway. Anyone could see how miserable I was making my mom. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I had to have someone to blame.
Finally, my birthday came. My parents left early in the morning for the hospital in Salt Lake City, and my aunt came to look after my brother and me. All day we played games, opened presents and had a picnic in the yard. Everyone pretended to have fun, but the tension in the air was as thick as peanut butter, and you could tell no one was really having a good time. This isn’t fair, I thought. This was supposed to be my day.
Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul: 101 Stories of Courage, Hope and Laughter Page 12